


Wedding

by swimmingfox



Series: Potential [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bristol, Drunk!Sansa is the best Sansa, F/M, M/M, Mead, Medieval Music, Podrya, Potential continues!, Rave, UK - Freeform, Wedding, acid house, because I can't stop, forest, sansan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7177340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/pseuds/swimmingfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wedding! A 'Potential' wedding! WHO COULD IT BE?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wedding

**Author's Note:**

> A one-shot. But there's more coming.

**Arya**

It was exactly the sort of wedding she imagined they would have, Arya thought, rolling her eyes. Forest: tick. Fairy lights and ribbons: tick. Ridiculous medieval music: tick. 

After several years of dating a kaleidoscopically-weird collection of men (Alliser, the scary dude who insisted on being called ‘sir’, Euron the maniacal free-diving guy, Roose the Creepy Leech Man) Aunt Lysa had finally, miraculously, found someone who was psycho enough to marry her. 

Lysa was wearing a long, floaty green and silver dress and had ivy wrapped round her upper arms. She looked like a fairy queen, if a fairy queen binged on yoga retreats, self-help books and acid. Thoros looked fucking over the moon, in his ridiculously chilled-out, ‘90s way, looking round like a nodding-car-dog at everyone, giving his gross crusty mates gentle thumbs up. He had probably eaten a load of magic mushrooms for breakfast.

Arya yawned. She was faintly hungover, though the pre-wedding Dad-fry-up (featuring the rather more Sainsbury’s-bought type of mushrooms) had soaked up some of it.

A squeeze on her hand. Pod was next to her, looking madly cute in a white shirt and a bit of ivy wrapped around his wrist, as all the guests had been given. She squeezed back, smiled, and hoped to all the gods that there was not a trace of guilt in her eyes. 

She had been feeling as guilty as fuck for six and a half weeks. Because six and a half weeks ago, she had found herself in bed with Gendry Waters.

***

**Sansa**

It was beautiful. It was only late afternoon but the woods were dark enough that the fairy lights were little Tinkerbells amongst the oak and beech leaves, and the scent of burning rosemary was headily in the air.

It wasn’t quite how Sansa would do it, what with the four women jumping over candle flames and the woman leading the ceremony who was intoning various things about the seasons in a slightly menacing fashion.

The music started up again. Obviously Robin was Musical Director of the entire ceremony. He was now lead boy soprano at Bristol Cathedral and so often tended to insist upon only being referred to as Head Chorister Robin, whilst often being found conducting imaginary chamber ensembles and orchestras. Today he was in his element, having composed a suite of entirely new, _ars nova_ -influenced music that he was now grandiosely conducting, with _real_ musicians. Whilst dressed as a wood sprite. Another of his eccentric friends was playing a bodhran and nodding earnestly, and Shireen sat by her Welsh harp, smiling as if she thought the whole thing was a bit hilarious but was far too polite to say.

Robin had been wildly in love with her for almost two years. He would use words like ‘courting’ and ‘engagement’ as if he were a twelfth-century troubadour, but Shireen never gave the impression that they were anything more than just good friends, for all his florid gestures and deep bows – another of which Robin gave now, before he launched them into another song.

There was a grumbling cough next to Sansa. Sandor was rubbing his thumb over his lip and obviously trying very hard not to laugh as Robin warbled away in _langue d’oc_. Sansa nudged him, an elbow in his warm side. 

It was the first wedding they had been to together. Thankfully, he hadn’t done much more than raise his eyebrows at the invitation before looking up trains. But then, it had been almost two years now since they had first met, and things had moved on rather a lot since then.

***

**Sandor**

They had been standing up for ages, whilst the woman blathered on about roots and flames. He had fucking ivy round his wrist like he was in a bloody ‘70s commune. Bloody Lysa.

He looked up at the clusters of leaves above him. Still, it was a lot quieter here, apart from Robin’s inane trilling. Unlike London.

Living in the capital was something he never in a million years thought he would have done, even six months ago. But you could say that about most things that had happened in the last two years. Be enough of interest to a drunk girl who looked like a prom queen that she would track him down at his local. Take the prom queen girl home (drunk, again) for the night. Somehow not fuck it up enough for her to want to see him again, a lot, for sex, often sober. Sex which only got better. Take her to Scotland, and go on a couple of bastard-hot holidays in Greece and Italy. Visit her regularly whilst she worked her arse off at university (she somehow not leaving him for one of the many upstarts with academic minds and fucking precocious mouths, all practically half his age). Move in with her. 

It had been a month since they’d started renting a flat, and the city was a bloody slap in the face. Tubes and buses and people, everywhere. Not caring that he was a big fucker, still pushing into him, elbows in his back. But there were quieter parts, more green than he’d imagined, especially out where they were in the south. He was constantly waiting for something to go wrong, for Sansa to wake up one morning and realise how long she’d been seeing him and give him the inevitable heave-ho. It still hadn’t happened.

Fingers crept around his arm. He looked over at her. She had flowers tucked in her hair. Of course she’d bloody love weddings and shine even more than usual. Right now, Lysa – the craziest woman he’d ever met, and he’d met a few – and Thoros, who was either permanently stoned or doing a very good impression of it, were having material wrapped round their hands.

A handfasting ceremony. It’s not like they weren’t going to still have to trot down to the town hall to register themselves like normal people, unless they didn’t care about being properly married and were just going to float about in the trees, high as kites, turning that kid of hers into even more of a child psychologist’s perfect dream. Or worse nightmare, in Sandor’s case.

He’d got himself another counselling job in a school, though it was full of cheeky little fucks (that was Peckham for you) and there wasn’t much room for sleeping on the job any more. Sansa was flying – doing her Masters in Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, looking each and every day taller and more confident and worldly and all the things he knew she could be. All the things he knew he couldn’t match.

One day, maybe sooner than he thought, it would all be over.

***

**Arya**

Handfasting weirdness done with, followed by a bit where they all had to join hands and chant. Arya had caught Sandor’s eye at that point and they had both simultaneously snorted whilst Sansa screwed her nose up at both of them. Now everyone was milling around in the woods, either happily (if they had half an idea about Lysa and Thoros and had come well-prepared in boots) or less happily (if they were stupid and had come in super-posh clothes and heels and were sinking into the mud). Some mead was being handed out.

Arya’s phone buzzed again in her bag. She clamped her hand on it. 

Pod looked at her. ‘Aren’t you going to get that?’

‘No,’ said Arya, a little too abruptly. ‘Everyone important is here. Fancy getting us some mead?’ she said, for the first and hopefully the last time in her entire life.

Pod smiled at her and wandered over to one of the knobbly carved tables.

Arya felt for her phone. A quick glance, to confirm the worst. That it was him again. Gendry. Fuck. 

It was her fault. Entirely. A classic Arya fuck-up-job. The sort she hadn’t done for ages. Since before Pod.

It had been ok when Pod had first gone off to Imperial College. Exciting to get over to London every couple of weeks, even if it was on the pukey Megabus, to scrunch up with him in his little single bed in halls, to go to a couple of down-and-dirty clubs and hang out by the river. It was a second life, and she was never keen to go back home to Bristol and sixth form and studying. His life felt far more grown-up, even if it reality it meant shit-tons of lectures and hard work. 

In fact, it was only recently that things had begun feeling a bit weird. He’d moved in with friends for the second year, and they made her feel young and stupid. Especially the girl who quite clearly was mad into Pod and would give Arya massive evils every time she was round and use big literary theory words just to make her look idiotic.

She glanced one more time at her phone. 

_Were u at? Am nearby._

‘Fuck off,’ she whispered to it. He must think she was back in Stokes Croft or something.

Gendry Waters had been the idol of quite a lot of the female contingent of Casterly Academy, even when he had gone a bit off the rails. Maybe especially when he had gone a bit off the rails. He’d left at the same time as Pod and would be spotted hanging around Bristol in his greased-up jeans, lazily dealing drugs outside clubs. Arya had been totally into him, before the whole Pod whirlwind had arrived.

So when he rocked up to watch her and Lommy do a bit of work on a new wall at Stokes Croft, she still couldn’t help having a little fangirl stomach-plunge, before she remembered that she was way cooler than him. He was probably only trying to sell her shit.

But he had stayed at watched them spray, and chatted, and not sounded like a complete moron. Arya had been feeling rubbish, because the last time she had gone to London the Pod-loving bitchface was making him dinner and he was laughing loads and she was sure that something was going on and could hardly talk to him all weekend. 

‘Here you go,’ said Pod, suddenly back at her side with a chunky wooden goblet. 

She took it from him and didn’t dare look up.

‘Got you an Old English Tudor Cheesecake,’ he said with a grin, leaning down to her, being double-cute. Her phone buzzed again. His eyebrows came down and didn’t go back up.

‘Yum,’ said Arya, feeling rather hopeless, drinking all of her mead in one go, turning her back to him slightly.

‘Arya?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Are you ok?’

Arya nodded, a lot, and shoved the little cake in her mouth. ‘Yes,' she said, through cake. 'Everything is awesome. Like the song.’

He gave her another slightly puzzled smile. ‘Do you mind if I go and talk to Bran?’

Arya shook her head, equally vehemently, and watched as he went over towards the stage, where a band were setting up. Lysa had, because she was an idiot, had forgotten that Bran used a frickin’ chair and might need paths rather than uneven mud, and so her little brother had had to come on crutches, which he was just managing. Jojen was looking crazily proud.

She wished she’d never been making street art. She wished she’d never said yes to swigging wine in the bloody graveyard with Gendry. To going back to his. Sleeping with him. 

Twice.

***

**Jojen**

Robin came up. ‘You have _got_ to see this,’ he said to Pod. ‘Caspar’s brought his _crumhorn_.’

‘Right,’ said Pod. He grinned at Jojen and Bran and followed the world’s most excitable musical genius towards the stage. 

‘How are you doing?’ Jojen said to Bran, who was perched on a big low branch, slightly rolling his neck from side to side, his eyes closed. Looking exquisite, because he always did.

Bran opened his eyes. ‘Bit knackered, to be honest.’ A calm smile. ‘I’m ok.’

Jojen had to work very hard not to cry with pride every time Bran levered himself up from his chair onto his crutches. For the last two years, he’d made achingly tiny progressions with his physiotherapist, sharing knock-off prosecco when he’d first felt his toes. They’d had sex, proper sex, for the first time, after Bran stood, extremely waveringly, a sapling in a light breeze, on his own for a few seconds before grabbing onto his support frame. And Jojen had promised him a surprise if Bran could get up the driveway on his crutches. Which he had done.

‘I’ll carry you home if you like,’ Jojen said. He was an extremely chivalrous person these days. He couldn’t help it.

‘You’d snap like a twig,’ said Bran. 

‘Be worth it, though.’

Bran just smiled at him, the sort of smile that made Jojen weak at the knees, even two years after them first meeting. ‘You’re feeling better, then?’

‘Mmm.’ Jojen had been rather unusually coy and delicate with Bran for the last week and a half. He had said that he wasn’t really feeling much up to anything, and had been feigning a slightly consumptive cough. He seemed to have just about got away with it. 

He looked around at Lysa, who was twirling merrily in front of her new husband. People were cracking open cans of beer and a bonfire was beginning to be erected. He had a feeling that it was going to get a bit bacchanalian by the end of it. He hoped so.

***

**Sansa**

Maybe _all_ weddings should be in the woods, Sansa thought, as the guitars got louder. This mead was making her a little tipsy. It was basically extremely alcoholic honey. 

Thoros’ old band, the Brotherhood of Banners, had reunited for the occasion and were launching into their second song, another sort of hippie-rock thing with dreadful synths and dodgy tribal drumming. Robin was directly in front of them, ecstatically and unnecessarily conducting.

A growl behind her. Rickon was behind her, wearing a wolf-mask. 

‘Hey, little wolf-bro,’ said Sansa. 

‘Grrr,’ he said.

Ned and Catelyn had put him in the Bristol West branch of the Woodcraft Folk, which had focused his rather more unruly tendencies, and though he was not exactly a model pupil at his school, he was in his element on Tuesday nights, where he was now an expert in building dens, making fires using dry moss as kindling, and other survival skills. He had once presented Sansa, home from uni, with a bowl of nettle soup and made her drink it all whilst glaring unblinkingly at her.

Another, smaller fiercer growl from the trees just beside them. A girl in a bear-mask crashed out of the brambles and stood there. Growled again.

Rickon shrieked in a rather un-wolf-like manner and ran away.

Sandor was talking to her parents, a beer in his hand and a cup of mead in the other (it took a very large amount of alcohol to make a dent in him). It had taken a while for him to truly relax around her family, but it had happened. He’d even spent last Christmas with them and Sansa had simultaneously melted and wanted to drag him up to her old room with the sight of him sitting in a paper hat shovelling Christmas pudding into his mouth. He got on well with all her brothers, in different ways – football talk with Robb, slightly halting attempts at literary talk with Bran, and generally carrying Rickon unconcernedly under his arm whilst Rickon writhed about and tried to bite him. 

God, she loved him. 

Arya had been fidgety all day. She didn’t like weddings, Sansa supposed. Far too conventional for her. Though she would bet three zillion pounds that Pod wouldn’t be very averse, even if he wasn’t loyally by her side at this second. 

Right now, her sister was on her own, staring at her phone, and a boy that Sansa didn’t recognise was sauntering up to her.

***

**Arya**

‘Alright.’

Aya whipped round at the sound of the new voice, which she already knew belonged to her worst nightmare. ‘Fuck. No. Go away. What are you doing here?’

Gendry was in his usual uniform of grimy t-shirt and low-slung jeans, looking around. ‘Heard there was a rave. Thought people might want some pills.’ He flashed her a grin. ‘You’ve been ignoring me.’

‘Fuck. Shit. Fuck off. Like, _right now_.’ She pushed him. His stupidly hard upper arm muscle. 

‘You can’t. It’s a party.’ He scratched his nose. ‘You don’t have the right.’ Looked at her with one eye shut.

‘It’s a wedding.’

A lazy shrug as he glanced around again. ‘Public space, though.’ 

She had felt horrible afterwards. She hadn’t stayed, just got dressed and walked home, which was three and half miles away. Let herself into the house and lain awake on top of her bed with her clothes on. Been sick.

And yet she had done it again, four days later, back in Gendry’s bedsit above a kebab shop in Southmead, because she had been finding it harder to talk to Pod. Because she had done it once and doing it again wouldn’t make it any worse, or any better. Because she was Arya. And Arya was a fuck-up.

The next time she had gone to Pod’s second year house, the annoying girl was snogging another girl in the kitchen, and Arya had wanted to cry, or possibly stab herself. She had got it all wrong. 

‘You haven’t been replying to my texts,’ Gendry said, folding his arms.

Since then, she had gone for one drink with Gendry, because she felt awful and couldn’t make it any more awful, before she had stood up in the pub and had run, very fast, home to bed. 

‘There’s a hint for you there,’ said Arya, looking around desperately. She couldn’t see Pod anywhere.

‘You said you liked it,’ he said. He leaned down to her. His voice was distressingly light. ‘I liked it. I like your art, too. You’re sick, Arya.’

‘Oh god,’ said Arya, wanting to throw up again right now. ‘Please go away.’

‘Hey,’ said Pod, who was suddenly behind them both. Looking at Gendry with recognition. They had been in the same year. ‘Alright,’ he said to him.

Gendry was taller, especially when he straightened, as he did right now. He gave Pod a quick chin-flick of a nod. ‘Alright, mate.’ Gendry knew Arya was with Pod. Had said he didn’t care. 

Pod looked between them. 

Gendry gave Arya a slow grin. ‘Later.’ Another nod to Pod, and he walked towards Thoros’ mates.

Pod watched him go before turning to her. ‘I didn’t know you knew him that well.’ 

‘I don’t. I didn’t. I don’t.’ Her heart was a massive block of Playdough wedged in her throat.

‘Arya.’ 

She looked at him, and knew he could see the panic in her eyes. She was useless at hiding things. 

‘What’s going on?’

She felt like a trapped rabbit. Probably looked like one.

‘You can tell me,’ Pod said, quietly, looking at his drink and back up at her. ‘You can tell me if you’re buying stuff off him. I mean, you know I’m not into it, but -’

It made her feel ten times worse. He didn’t even suspect it. Arya let out a small, part-animal sob.

Pod’s eyebrows wrung themselves. ‘Or - selling stuff?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in a wet half-croak. ‘I’m sorry for everything. I -’ she went to take a breath, and couldn’t find one. ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked up at him, at his open, concerned face. ‘I slept with him.’

He went still. Stared at her. There was not a trace of anger on his face, or bewilderment, or anything. 

‘I’m so sorry.’ She sounded like she was dying. ‘I – I thought something was happening between you and – you and Dory and – that’s not an excuse, I know it’s not. I’ve been feeling shit. I just missed you. It’s – it’s always been really hard, you being away. I’m sorry.’

Behind them, the band had stopped and everyone was cheering them. Whistling. 

‘Recently?’ he said, in the same Pod-voice he always used. Simple, honest, clean. 

‘A few weeks ago.’ Now that she had said it, she couldn’t really stop the suicidal vibe. ‘Twice.’

His face fell. Eyes widening and deepening into mossy puddles before he looked at the ground. For a long time. 

‘Pod,’ she said.

He looked at the ground. ‘Ok. I have to – I have to think about this.’ He looked back up at her, utterly wounded. ‘I think I’ll just go for a walk.’ He turned and walked away, into the trees.

Arya sat down on the wet ground, feeling nothing at all.

***

**Sansa**

A DJ had set up in the woods, even though it was cold and a bit drizzly now, and there were little gnats everywhere. People had changed into a mixture of acid house t-shirts and tie-dyed things and animal masks and were dancing to energetic, sparse, old-school house. 

Robin and Shireen and their weird mate having it large at the front. Lyanna had taken off her bear-mask and was stage-diving into them. 

Sansa finished her mead and went to rescue Robb, who was currently surrounded by a horde of Lysa’s toned yoga-mum friends and looking a bit terrified. 

‘Thank god,’ he shouted in her ear. ‘Save me. They’re rabid.’

Sansa threw her arms round his neck and whooped a bit, before joining the yoga-mums and Robb in chucking her hands up. Her brother did a little hip-shimmy and the yoga-mums gave a collective war-cry of delight. She looked around for Sandor, who was sitting on a log-bench, watching her.

She waved and gyrated in a ridiculous fashion. He shook his head at her. She beckoned him over. Sandor shook his head again, and even from here she could see the wry darkness in his grin, and hear his half-admonishing, oven-warm words in her brain, the sort that seemed, even two years on, to make her clothes want to melt away from her body. 

She knew exactly what she wanted to tell _him_. Just as soon as this song finished. 

***

**Sandor**

In the early ‘90s, Sandor had been a young teenager with half a face, struggling in and out of hospital with skin grafts. Bigger than everyone else, and uglier than everyone else. It wasn’t a time he remembered with even a modicum of fondness, unlike this bunch of sentimental arseholes. The Stone Roses, A Guy Called Gerald and high-NRG had rather passed him by. 

He watched the smoke from the bonfire weave up, and the midges - or the half-arsed English version of them - dart around amongst it all. Wishing they just served proper ale and not the sweet, cloudy mead everyone was now out of their minds on. 

Sansa was coming towards him as if she was coming out of the damned fire, doing that weaving thing that she thought was seductive but actually just belied how many cups of home-brewed mead she’d had. She was wearing wellies now, which just made her legs look even longer. If there wasn’t a crowd of whacked-out wedding guests here, he’d hold her hips and lick them. All the way up.

‘You haven’t danced with me,’ she said, pointing a half-stern, half-Christ-he-wanted-to-grab-her-hand-and-shove-her-up-against-a-tree-right-now finger at him.

‘I didn’t do it the first time round, and I’m not doing it now,’ he said, though he knew these days how easily she could drag him into anything. 

‘Spoilsport,’ she said, sitting on his lap. ‘I want to be a ‘90s raver.’

‘Smacked out of your face on ecstasy and getting arrested by coppers?’

‘Yes,’ she said, straight back. ‘That sounds _fine_. You’d protect me from them, anyway.’ She leaned into him a little more.

Sandor put an arm round her waist, which meant that he could practically touch the other side of his ribs. ‘The wasted ravers?’

‘The police,’ she said. ‘The dirty fuzz. The pigs.’

He shook his head at her. ‘Not very convincing, missy.’

‘You would, though, wouldn’t you?’ She put her head into his neck, a place she’d often go to, and a place that made him want to eat her up, slowly. ‘Protect me. From anyone.’ Her voice was drifting, becoming smoke. 

Sandor imagined swinging some big fucking sword around, causing carnage, ideally of swaggering university students and boys wearing t-shirts with smiley faces on them. ‘Aye. I would.’

There was a small sigh, and one of her fingers was winding little lines along his spine. ‘I want to marry you and have your babies,’ she said.

The music was pulsing, bleepy, never-ending. Rickon streaked past, followed by that little girl, who had her fingers out like claws. 

Sansa sat up and looked at him, big bloody blue eyes like leaky ink cartridges. ‘I want to marry you and have your babies,’ she said again.

‘Heard you the first time,’ Sandor said, quietly. Not knowing what else he could possibly say. 

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, I have said it now and I don’t care.’

‘You’re drunk, firecracker,’ he said gently.

‘Drunk and saying only very sensible, truthful things,’ she said. ‘Truthful things about life. My life.’ She jabbed a finger into his chest. ‘ _Your_ life, you big sexy _man_ -man.’

He loved her when she was drunk. He loved her when she was sober. When she was crouched over her books at their little kitchen table, or putting her arms round him when he was cooking, or asleep on his chest in front of Match of the Day, because as much as she tried, she could never last a whole show.

‘You are the best,’ she said now. ‘And I want you _forever_.’

Sandor held her a little tighter and wished she’d stop talking. 

‘Oi,’ she said, poking him. 

‘What,’ he said. 

‘Marry me.’

‘Aye, ok,’ he said, just to shut her the hell up. 

***

**Jojen**

Bran leaned into Jojen, who slung his arm round him. ‘I’m going to go back with Mum.’

‘Right,’ said Jojen, blinking and trying to look a bit more normal. It wasn’t the done thing, being high in front of the boyfriend’s mum. He had bumped into Gendry Waters, who had sold him a couple of pills before disappearing into the shadows like some sort of drug-dealing forest spirit.

Bran smiled at him. ‘Stay. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m just tired.’

‘Wait. I have to show you something.’ Jojen began to unbuckle his belt.

‘I’ve seen that quite a few times.’

‘No, not my cock. Not right now. It’s your surprise.’ He shimmied out of his trousers. ‘Wait.’ He shoved his boots off and stood in his pants, in the mud. Put his hand on his thigh and did a rather ungainly half-squat.

It was still a little crusted, the dried skin occasionally flaking. It itched like fuck, actually. There it was, the reason for his very much out-of-character lack of sexual interest for the last few days. A tattoo, on his inner thigh, in a simple font.

_He is and as he is._

Bran looked up at him, slightly incredulous, a smile brightening from within him. ‘You’re – wow. You’re insane.’

‘Insane for _you_ ,’ said Jojen, feeling a bit delirious. He was wearing a halo of leaves that Shireen the harp girl had made for him and basically felt like Dionysus.

‘It’s amazing.’

‘ _You’re_ amazing.’ He wasn’t being very verbose. ‘You know that I love you, right?’ More than John Cage. More than Marinetti. More than Annette Messager, whose freaky knotted teddy bears he’d only recently discovered. And more than Gertrude Stein, who Bran had introduced him to and whose words he now had tattooed for all eternity on his leg. More than more than as is more than.

‘I know.’ Bran leaned on his crutch, with difficulty. ‘I love you, too.’ Kissed him. ‘Goodnight.’ He very slowly began to manoeuver himself towards Catelyn.

Jojen stood in his pants, with people dancing around him. This whole thing was pretty fucking beautiful. Robin was waving a sparkler and singing at the top of his voice, which probably meant dogs were crooning along with him all over Bristol.

Being kissed by Bran was like a benediction, every time. A bene _dick_ tion. 

Boys could get married. Girls could get married. They could get married. 

Jojen looked up at the green leaves, which were darkening as the evening wound more tightly in in. It told him what he knew already. That he and Bran would, one day.

***

**Arya**

Everyone was dancing. Even her _dad_ was dancing, with Rickon’s mate Lyanna, who was sort of throwing herself into his stomach like a boulder being catapulted from some medieval sling. Thoros was DJ-ing now, and Lysa was licking his ear.

Arya had been sitting in exactly the same position for half an hour. Pod hadn’t come back yet. 

He hated her. She had betrayed him. Even as she’d been fucking Gendry, she’d been thinking of Pod and what a terrible thing she was doing. 

Now she could see him, walking around the edge of the dancers, past the bonfire towards her, and the feeling of dread was as heavy as the air. 

Arya scrambled up as he approached. Rain was in his hair. 

‘I’ve thought about it,’ he said.

Something in her cleared. He was Pod. He loved her. He was a million times better than her and he would forgive her. She would be better. She would have to be. ‘I’ll never do it again,’ she said. ‘Not with anyone. I love you, Pod. I’m so sorry. It was a mistake. A horrible mistake.’

He looked at her. ‘I’ve thought about it,’ he said again. ‘And – I can’t, Arya. It’s – if you’d been worried about anything, you should have told me. Nothing was happening with Dory, I mean, she’s gay, and she’s my friend, that’s all.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m an idiot.’

‘You’re not. You’re clever. That’s why it hurts. That’s why I can’t – you only told me because he was here just now.’

It took her a moment to realise what was happening. 

'And -' he glanced at her, and she could see how much pain was there. 'Twice. There's a mistake, and there's -' He took a deep breath. ‘So.’ He looked at his feet and glanced back up at her from underneath his eyebrows. ‘I can’t be with you. Any more.’

Arya’s heart had already stopped. ‘Ok,’ she said.

He took another long, heavy breath. ‘Ok.’ Swallowed. ‘Sorry.’ He put a hand on his forehead to wipe away the rain, looked at her quickly. ‘I’m – I’m going to go now.’ He scratched his eyebrow and walked away.

‘Ok,’ said Arya to his back, before sitting down again.

***

**Sansa**

‘’90s house music is the best music ever!’ Sansa shouted to a man called Lemoncloak, which was surely a stage name. He had played bass in Thoros’ band, and had greasy, grey-blonde hair and stubble.

Sandor wouldn’t dance but she didn’t care, because he basically did everything else she ever asked him to do. Like marry her. _She_ had asked him, like a fabulous fourth-wave feminist, and he had said yes and they were getting married. 

‘This is actually late ‘80s acid house,’ Lemoncloak shouted in her ear, a little too close. ‘Not as good as the first time round, but the girls have got better-looking.’ He put a hand on her waist. 

Sansa wriggled merrily out of his grasp and gave him a thumbs-up, before dancing very definitely away from his wandering hands. Where was her sister? Arya was the only one who she could dance properly with to this hilariously nutty music and she needed to tell someone what had happened. Because they were going to get married. Tears began to sting her eyes, or perhaps it was the bonfire smoke. She danced her way out of the circle, which was now like a sort of acid house pow-wow, past Robb, who incredibly was snogging the handfasting ceremony woman against a tree, past Jojen, who was standing very still with a wreath of leaves around his head, nodding very earnestly with a fag in his mouth whilst some crazy friend of Lysa’s shouted to him about ley lines and tried to grope him, past Robin, who was collapsed in a melodramatic sleepy heap on a blanket, and practically fell over her sister.

‘Ow,’ said Sansa. ‘Arya. I have some news. Some shit-hot-off-the-press amazing news.’

‘Go away,’ said Arya, who had her head on her knees, her hair covering her entire face.

‘Arya. It’s _important_. It is something to do with our current surroundings and what is currently happening,’ she said, extremely meaningfully, finding Arya’s chin and lifting her head up.

Her sister’s face was smudged with make-up in what was definitely more than her normal emo-tinged look. 

‘Babe. Sis. What is it? Arya.’ She put her arm around her.

‘Pod.’

‘Pod.' She glanced around. 'Where is Pod?’

‘He’s gone.’

‘He’ll be back. You’ll see him tomorrow. Pod is the best thing ever.’ She looked over towards Sandor, who was currently holding Lyanna away at arm’s length and drinking more mead. ‘The second best thing ever. In man terms. Though smaller. Maybe not all over, I don’t know, you have never been very exact about that particular measurement.’

Arya burst into what was clearly a fresh set of tears.

Sansa found herself walking over to her next husband. Her best husband. The first best.

Sandor was looking at her a bit strangely. ‘Changed your mind, have you?’

‘What? No. It’s just -’ she looked at him and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Arya.’

‘Arya what?’ he said, looking around. 'If you're going to tell me that she's fallen into the river, well, she can bloody swim.'

‘ _No_ ,' said Sansa, the word drawn out. 'Can you talk to her? I’m not being much help.’ She leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘I’m a little bit drunk.’ She showed a sliver of a gap between two fingers. Made them slightly wider.

‘Christ,’ said Sandor, sitting her down. ‘Drink some water, you madwoman.’ He got up, swigging the last of his mead. 

***

**Sandor**

Sandor found her huddled up like a little bloody dormouse next to a log. Not even on a log but shoved in amongst all the leaves. He sighed and got himself down to her level, his knees cracking like a light support weapon firing rounds off. ‘What’s the drama this time, then?’

Her words came out mostly one at a time. ‘Pod. Has. Broken. Up with me.’ She didn’t lift her head.

‘Think you’ve had a bit too much to drink.’ He glanced over towards Sansa, who had her arms up in the air next to her older brother. All of them pissed as newts. ‘What is it with you lot?’

‘No. He’s broken up with me.’

‘Jesus Christ. What the fuck did you do?’ She looked up at him, a flicker of offence for one second before her eyes clouded. He felt bad for that. For assuming it was her fault. ‘Sorry. What happened?’

‘I fucked a guy.’

It was her fault. ‘Ok.’

‘Twice.’

For god’s sake. ‘Ok.’

‘And I only just told him. Pod.’

Because the guy, for all his bloody softness, had some self-respect. Sandor wondered what he would do if Sansa told him she had slept with someone else. Track him down and punch him into oblivion, before possibly chucking himself in the river. Pod was half his age and probably twice as mature.

‘Right.’ There wasn’t much to say. She’d fucked up. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Tell me what to do.’ Her voice was tiny.

‘Move on.’

‘No, I mean, how do I get him back?’

Sandor went to speak, and didn’t. Arya clocked the silence, understood, and went into another round of angry, snivelling sobs and multiple curses. A girl after his own heart, in this one way at least.

He put his arm round her. ‘You can’t bloody just let it be good, can you?’ he said. ‘He’s a sound lad.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I thought it was going wrong.’

So you made it worse, he thought, letting her talk on about it all, as she did in short, croaking bursts before she went quiet. And then they just sat there as the bonfire got lower and all of those hippie-bastard friends of the happy, mad-as-fuck couple held their arms up in the air like a bloody cult.

‘What was Sansa going to tell me?’ Arya said, her head still on her knees.

‘What’s that?’

‘Sansa. She said she had big news.’ She rolled her face up towards him, her make-up gone astray. ‘You’re not having a fucking baby, are you? She’s only twenty-two. It would be really chavvy.’

‘No. It’s nothing,’ he said, quite gently. ‘Forget it.’ Because he would. Because Sansa was drunk. Because it would never, not in a million years, come true.

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> I make only a slight apology to Gendry fans for making Gendry into a no-hoper deadbeat here. Because I love Gendry really. Just not this adapted version. Though he still has those sexy upper arms. DAMN HIS SEXY UPPER ARMS.
> 
>  **MEDIEVAL MUSICAL NOTES (and other things)** :
> 
> Ars nova is a 14th-century French music style, featuring rondelets and virelais and motets and ting.
> 
> A bodhran is a traditional Irish handheld drum. 
> 
> Langue d’oc is one of the Medieval French languages. Ah, Robin.
> 
> A crumhorn is a medieval wind instrument with a double-reed and a curved end. It sounds like an oboe with the ‘flu. 
> 
> Woodcraft Folk! A sort of hippie-ish alternative to the Scouts, with a focus on social values and outdoor skills.
> 
> Later images of Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility, madness, theatre and religious ecstasy (so basically the ‘god of tits and wine’) show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth. Cough JOJEN ALERT
> 
>  
> 
> ****  
>  BRITISH NOTES FOR ALL YOU OTHER WEIRDOS:  
>  **  
> Stokes Croft is a hip area of Bristol with tons of ace street art, including a well-known Banksy. I was in Brizzle (as it’s known, probably only to me) last week and drove through it. It’s COOL.**
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> **Sick = great, good, fab, awesome.**  
>  **
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> **Chavvy = not a good term, but something people describe more working-class people as. Sort of like white trash.**  
>  **


End file.
